


Sweet Taste In The Mouth

by spiderweb_wine



Series: That Bright Tether [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, still mostly fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-07
Updated: 2012-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-09 08:41:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiderweb_wine/pseuds/spiderweb_wine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a.k.a the bathtub fluff sequel</p><p>(Arthur has always hated Nice.)</p><p>“You know,” Eames says, “I could get you out of this job on a legitimate reason – or an illegitimate one – by tomorrow morning.”</p><p>Arthur's too tired for this. “Let me guess, this is another stab at my lack of imagination.”</p><p>“More at your lack of reasonable limits on the words 'work ethic,' darling.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Taste In The Mouth

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written on LJ for cherrybina's wonderful Kink Fest 2.0, which contained absolutely no shame whatsoever!

*

Eames comes to get him in Nice.

Arthur has always hated Nice. He hates its bold modernism, the smooth white casino facades like fresh bandages on a wound. He hates the brash neon signs and the way the street patterns have changed every time he goes back, mutable as a dream, spiderwebs of construction barely keeping pace with the city's growth. Nice always catches him off-balance and mean.

He likes the seawall, the very fringes of the city. During the day there are too many people, the women topless and brazen, the young men bronzed and perfect. He goes down to the seawall at night and watches the dim grey line of surf pound the dim grey stretch of pebbly beach.

The moon's gravity has been shoving the earth's oceans against shorelines for 4.6 billion years. It is a comforting thought sometimes. Arthur checks his watch - it's nearly 03h00. Too early for the club-hoppers who walk back to their hotels in loud groups while singing German drinking songs. Too late for the lovers who drift along whispering sweet things to each other. The seawall is Arthur's alone.

It's cold. He unrolls his sleeves, and ten minutes later puts his suit jacket back on.

*

The thing is, Lettie called him. Called in a favour. Arthur went.

But.

The job's going sideways. There's no negotiating with Lettie, she's stone cold crazy. She always has been. That's gotten them out of tough spots in the past, because she takes action at an angle no-one expects. She perpetually has the element of surprise. Her Penrose architecture is a thing of beauty - terrible, gruesome beauty. The same goes for her Mobius freeway junctures, fuck, whole Mobius neighbourhoods. Don't even get her started on Klein-bottle structures.

Arthur thought he knew what he was getting into. Knew how to handle her a little, enough. But in the three years since he last worked with her, something crucial to her psyche has come undone. Arthur used to have a few working strategies. Not anymore.

*

Dream criminals deal in secrets. They also deal in debts, and guilts, and anything else they can get their hands on. Arthur's caught fast.

*

Someone's coming. Arthur recognizes the footsteps ten feet away but that can't be right. Eames is in Cairo.

“Of all the gin joints in all the cities in all the world,” Arthur quotes, “you had to walk into mine.”

Sensible shoes and the wrinkled cuffs of linen pants stop at the edge of his vision. “A less ambiguous welcome would be appreciated, Arthur.”

*

Eames sits down, easy and fluid and he must have been on an aeroplane all day but you couldn't tell by how he moves. Arthur doesn't say anything. He won't need to. If Eames is here, then he knows what Arthur's doing, who he's working with, what the job is.

They sit in silence for a while. The sound of the surf has been in Arthur's ears for hours already. He waits.

*

“You know,” Eames says, “I could get you out of this job on a legitimate reason – or an illegitimate one – by tomorrow morning.”

Arthur's too tired for this. “Let me guess, this is another stab at my lack of imagination.”

“More at your lack of reasonable limits on the words 'work ethic,' darling.”

*

Arthur knows what Eames will do if he says yes. He'll walk them both into the team's headquarters with one hand planted warmly on the small of Arthur's back, or the back of his neck, and the other on the butt of his gun. He'll tell Lettie and her team in no uncertain terms exactly what will happen to them if anything happens to Arthur. Exactly and in cold, gruesome detail. He'll make them toe the line, his line, by the strength of his will and the threat of imaginative retaliation.

He'll happily out them both to the entire dreamshare underground. And the thing is – they're fucking, sure, but it shouldn't be advertised. Dreamsharers, after all, are known for the inventiveness of their plans. Why should revenge be any different? And they don't like it cold. They like it steaming hot and blue-rare with a side of offal.

Arthur can't let him do it. He likes what he does now, and who he has now.

“No,” he says.

“Arthur,” Eames says. His fingers dig into Arthur's hip.

“Give me a week,” Arthur says. He'll be fine.

*

Eames looks as though Cairo has been good to him. Sunny. Full of linen suits that don't look as horrible when wrinkled as by all rights they should. Nice must be a let-down by comparison.

*

Eames' arm is a warm band against his side; the wind off the sea is cold. The coldest hour is the one right before the dawn. It's reasonable to lean into Eames' warmth. Arthur lets himself tip sideways.

“Right, then,” Eames says, because he doesn't just launch straight into the important things, he gives them preamble. A person can judge how important something is by how much verbal foreplay is attached to it, if they know what they're looking at. “Your place or mine?”

“What?” Arthur says. It's 04h30.

“Hotel rooms, love. You have one. Yours or mine?”

“I can't,” Arthur says. He has to be back at work at 07h00.

Eames' arm tightens around Arthur's waist, so that when Eames stands, Arthur comes up with him. “I'll let your pompous little psychopath of a team leader know you're not coming in until the afternoon. From the looks of it, you haven't slept in...” and Arthur has to meet Eames' too-sharp gaze, “...three days.”

Four days. Arthur pushes away, stands alone with the sea wind colder along the side Eames had been occupying. “I can't.”

“Where are you more likely to actually sleep? Yours or mine?”

Apparently, there's no getting out of this one. Fighting will only drag it out. He's tired. Arthur shivers, says, “Mine.”

“Lead on, then!” Eames is already turning towards the path away from the seawall, with the quick jaunty bounce in his stride he gets when it's too cold to be languid.

“Oh, like you don't know where it is,” Arthur mutters, and follows.

*

Arthur's hotel room shows little sign that he's been on this job for nearly a month. He puts his laptop on the dresser, his notebook on top of that, squares up the edges. When he turns around, Eames is closing the door with the Do Not Disturb sign hung up outside.

Arthur ignores the warm presence at his back and goes to brush his teeth.

When he comes out of the bathroom, Eames has turned off all the lights except the small desk lamp in the far corner. He's sitting in the green chintz chair beneath it, legs stretched out, paperback open in one hand. The curtain beside him bells out in the slight breeze from the open window. In about ten minutes, the birds will start chirping.

*

Arthur gets in bed. There's really nothing else to do.

*

He can't sleep. It's not the light, which isn't bright, or Eames, who's quiet (for a change). It's that he can't turn his brain off, thoughts chasing each other's forked tails around, so that every time he tells himself he's going to stop thinking and sleep now, he's thinking again. He turns over for the third time, sighs.

There's a click from Eames' corner as the light is turned off. For a moment the room is pitch black. There's a rustling noise, like pockets being rifled through. Another light comes on, tiny and focused, a booklight. Eames sticks it in the book and toes off his shoes. He comes over and climbs onto the bed, commandeers all the pillows Arthur isn't using and arranges them to his liking against the headboard. Settles in, on top of the quilts. His legs are crossed at the ankles and he's sitting very close. Arthur can feel Eames' knee against his ribs, a little, Eames' warmth all down that side. Eames says, “Sleep now.”

Arthur still doesn't think he will, but he does.

That's the kicker.

*

“Je voudrais un café blanc, s'il vous plaît,” Arthur says, though in this country lattés are only for breakfast, children, and invalids. The barista flicks him a dismissive glance – la petite déjeuner was finished hours ago. Arthur isn't nearly as embarrassed about the day's first meal being in the mid-afternoon as he should be.

Behind him, Eames orders croissants in his rough-edged French. The barista frowns at him but doesn't pretend not to understand. Eames frowns right back, the force of his authority undimmed by the fine-focus details of grammar. The look he gives the man as the pastries are passed over the counter could be called a smile if one were very, very stupid. “Bloody stuck-ups,” he mutters in Arthur's ear.

“Your Afrikaans is flawless, though,” Arthur says, and goes to find a table.

*

The croissant that Eames ordered for him without so much as a by-your-leave sits in front of him, a baleful and buttery presence. Arthur can't eat it. Eames is overstepping, trying to push the issue. Arthur snaps his metaphoric spine straight and doesn't touch the poor thing. He can't do this. Not right now. He's just slept for 11 hours straight, no dreams, and he's stronger than this.

If Eames asked again, right now, he still couldn't say yes.

*

The café Arthur picked for not eating croissants in is bright, open, with tiny modern chairs and the employees dressed in the Nice version of hipster. Three girls in earth-toned gypsy skirts (and, because this is France, improbably high heels) giggle in the corner as scooters zip past the open edge of the seating area. Arthur has just leaned in to answer some small remark of Eames' when Edith Piaf starts playing on the speaker system.

'Non, rien de rien...'

Arthur can't help it, he tenses up, fingers white-knuckled around his cup. He knows reality, knows it, but so many things have gone wrong on this job, Murphy's law is rainbows and ice cream by comparison, and it would be something Lettie would do to them all if she could, sociopathic. It would be a joke to her.

Eames notices, because that's what he does. Arthur can see him noticing. He reaches over, wraps his hand warm and tight over the top of Arthur's knee, squeezes. Enough, but not enough to draw attention to them and Arthur can relax because there are parts of himself that Eames doesn't bring down into dreams and that casual handsiness with Arthur's space is one of them. Topside, he wheedles and insults and confounds; he also touches, pushes, brushes up against Arthur's personal boundaries as often as he can get away with it. Under, his smile and his eyes are the same but he keeps his hands to himself.

(It is sometimes frustrating that Arthur's own projection of Eames seems to have the same policy.)

*

Eames is wary of what may happen if he lets Arthur slip under – subspace under – in a dream. Yusuf could undoubtedly suggest a safe compound but Eames refuses. Arthur respects that refusal.

Eames doesn't know about that one time in the military training with Giles. Well, alright, more than one time. It worked, and Arthur hadn't even had to hide the bruises under his collar from his CO. Dream marks don't show, though he could still feel the shadow of them for days. Giles' gaze had been warm as a caress from clear across the parade ground, the mornings after.

*

“What's it like?” Eames had asked, once. “Going - - under, like that?”

“Good,” Arthur had said. He'd been comfortable, Eames pressed up close and bare against his back. When Eames spoke, Arthur could feel it as much as hear it. “Good. Warm. You should try it sometime.”

The rumble of Eames' laugh had been soft. “I can't, pet.”

“I'm sorry,” Arthur had said. He couldn't think of anything else to say. It was possible he hadn't been entirely up himself. Eames only took him down when they had more than a couple of days, because sometimes it took him awhile to come all the way back up.

From what Arthur could tell, Eames didn't mind. It was nice.

*

Dream marks don't show. Lettie shot him out of the dream the day before, as the projections closed in, but she gutshot him, bleeding slowly out while she ground her heel into his torn-up stomach. He'd screamed. Stiletto heels aren't any less painful for being dreamed.

Eames' grip on his knee is warm, intimate. Real.

*

Six days later.

Arthur pulls his suit jacket closed against the seawall's chill. He's done. It's almost midnight. Too early for the drinking songs; the lovers are still out, strolling silhouetted hand-in-hand against the mot-quite-black of the night's cloud cover.

There are footsteps coming towards him, quick light purposeful footsteps. The faint scent of sandalwood. He watches the ocean pound the grey line of the shore.

The footsteps stop behind him. There's a hand on his shoulder, broad and warm and just the right side of too tight. “Sweetheart,” Eames says.

Alright.

*

The job is done. Finished. Fini, fin, finito. They're in a bar. Somewhere. Eames knows where. Arthur's well on his way to being thoroughly drunk.

“The thing is,” he says, trying to get it through to Eames, Eames who is unfairly not drunk, Eames who is on some odd kick about responsibility of late, “the thing is, I do have regrets.”

“Mmm?” Eames says, bending a little closer. “What's that, pet?”

He shouldn't do that, shouldn't call Arthur those, pet names, here. They're in a bar, for fuck's sake. “I do have regrets. I do.”

Eames raises his eyebrows.

“Edith Piaf,” Arthur says, and Eames' face clears like a summer storm.

“Of course you do,” he says.

“No,” Arthur says, because Eames thinks he's getting it but he isn't, he isn't. “The thing is, Edith says she doesn't regret anything, and Dom chose that song because, because....”

Eames is nodding as though Arthur is actually finishing some of those sentences.

“- - but what we do, it's, I DO have regrets. Eames, I do. Sometimes it needs to be done, but sometimes it's just, I like money, but that's not, it's just, you know - - and then Lettie, she - -” Lettie, he's done with her. Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt. Burned the bridges. Burned the whole fucking railroad at the end of this fucking job. He never has to work with her again, ever.

“I know,” Eames says, and come to think of it, he says that a lot when Arthur's too mad. Or too drunk. “I know,” he says again, and maybe he does. Maybe he gets some of it. Suddenly he's right there, right up in Arthur's space, making it too easy for Arthur to let himself be pulled in tight. “I know,” and with his ear to Eames' chest Arthur can feel the words below the thumping bass of overworked speakers.

Maybe he does. Arthur goes with it.

*

It's so late it's early and Arthur has stopped keeping track but they're walking, suddenly. He breathes in cool Mediterranean wind like a slap in the face. Four steps back the throb of bass cuts off, the club door swinging shut. Arthur takes a deep breath and steps off the sidewalk by mistake; he hadn't known its edge was so close.

“Up here, pet.” Eames' voice is a quick burn of whisky against his senses as he's pulled back to higher ground. They walk and then there's a taxi, and in the darkness, Arthur lets his hands wander, stymied when Eames pins both his wrists with an aggrieved sound. He tips Arthur's chin with his fingers until Arthur can see the bright curious eyes of the driver flick to them in the rear-view mirror.

Ah.

He tips his head back against the seat, lets his attention narrow to the slow sweep of Eames' thumb over the pulse in his wrist, until they stop.

*

Eames' hotel has entirely too many stairs. “Their elevator gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies,” Eames explains, but it doesn't help Arthur's feet want to co-operate. He would curse but then Eames would curl the corner of his mouth up in the way that means he's laughing, really. So he's managing, and then Eames is opening a door, tugging him through, and pinning him up against the inside wall.

Arthur has time for half a breath, and he stopped two drinks too late, so that's enough time to feel off-balance but not enough time to do anything about it, and then Eames has both of his wrists trapped between them again in one freakishly warm hand, thumb and fingertips firm over the arteries close to the surface there. Arthur's balance snaps back into place like a rubber band. Probably that should worry him. He doesn't have time to think about it because Eames leans in, more and more of his weight pressing Arthur solidly into the wall behind him. He tightens his fingers until it hurts, until Arthur can feel his bones grinding together, bruising, can feel Eames', can feel the structure with the form. Arthur breathes in against the small live-wire pain, against the insistent force of Eames, breathes out and lets go that deeply-buried sliver of himself that is still ice-cold and shivering in the aftermath of the job. The aftermath of Lettie.

He has to consciously look at it, clutch it tight and then let it go, the core of icy control that has gotten him through the last month.

His next breath shudders more than it should but he's not cold any more. He's warm all down his front from the press of Eames' body, warm from the inside with every thud of his pulse. He tips his head back against the cool wall, breathes consciously deep and steady, and Eames takes the opening to mouth along his collarbone, his jaw, tiny bites and the scrub of stubble.

“I've got you,” Eames says, and he's pushing, always pushing, rough and sweet and lethal. “I've got you.”

*

This close, Arthur can smell him, honest sweat and the sandalwood cologne he only wears when he's not on a job. Eames mouths along his collarbone, but he does it with an overabundance of tongue and the barest scrape of teeth, wet and sloppy instead of designed to mark, and Arthur's hips come off the wall involuntarily.

Eames laughs, low against the hollow of his throat, so Arthur can feel it. “We'll get there,” he says. “My pace, though, love.” Then he straightens up and claims Arthur's mouth.

For a moment it's everything Arthur needs; it's all he needs. It's the easy purposeful slide of Eames' tongue, the scratch of his off-the-job vendetta against shaving more often than every three days. It's Eames' weight pinning him to the wall by the shoulders and ribcage, so he'd be out of breath even without Eames taking up most of his intake space. It's Eames stealing his breath and his space and his thoughts, and he's just taking it. Opening to it.

Then it's not enough. It's not enough and Arthur wants more, needs it now. He draws breath against Eames' weight, bites Eames' lower lip and shoves up into the tangle of tongues and teeth. On his wrists, Eames' hands loosen just enough. He brings his hands up behind Eames' neck, trying to both breathe and get deeper at the same time. Eames doesn't taste like breath mints anymore, just like himself. There's a bed in the other room and they can - - well, the possibilities are wonderful and endless, and Arthur has plans for that bed. They're both hard now and he lifts his pelvis into Eames again, wanting friction, pushing him backwards.

The next moment his breath leaves him all at once as Eames shoves him wholly back against the wall. He catches his wrists again, less forceful but more secure. He's laughing, breathless, lips bitten red. “You mustn't have heard me, I said my pace.” He's still leaning into Arthur, pinning him to the wall from shoulder to toe. His weight holds Arthur fast. “My boy, my hotel, my pace. Do you uderstand, pet?”

Arthur's terribly, impossibly hard. He's lightheaded, not enough air left in his lungs, throat closing with want. Eames is taking up most of his field of vision and he can't think except of this, yes yes yes, and he says, “Yes.”

Eames' gaze doesn't waver. His fingers lock down around Arthur's wrists.

Arthur struggles for a breath he can't seem to find and manages, “Yes, Mr. Eames. Please.”

It's enough. Eames grins, leans in, plunders Arthur's mouth again and Arthur lets him, pants through it, head back against the wall and his jaw slack for Eames, wrists throbbing. He has his eyes closed.

When Eames is done he nudges Arthur's chin up, plants open-mouthed kisses down his throat, releases him to start in on his clothes. Arthur's shirt loosens with each movement of those clever pickpocket hands.

His own hands, released, are cold and too light.

He could float away. Insubstantial as a dream.

Cold claw-tips of fear gouge his spine, panic racing unbridled along his nerves for a long moment before he realizes he can still feel Eames' warmth. When he manages to slit his eyes open, Eames is still right there, hasn't stepped away at all, hands working deft and sure in an impossibly small space between them. He looks up, then, catches Arthur's gaze unexpected and too open. The need to hide is stupid and childish; Eames won't let him drop his chin yet. The hitch in his diaphragm, the remnants of blind, idiot panic must be too easily read because Eames repeats, “I've got you, Arthur, I've got you,” and catches his wrists again as the last button falls loose. He spreads his fingers, maximizing contact, so Arthur can sink into it like a warm blanket. A warm blanket that has him aching against the cruel confines of his zipper.

He's probably making noise but can't hear it over the thudding in his ears.

Eames tugs on the open edges of the shirt; Arthur's arm goes along for the ride. “This looks to have cost you a pretty penny.” Eames has torn shirts in the past, sent buttons skittering across plush carpet, shining boardroom floors, and once the gritty concrete of the warehouse. “Who is it?”

“Zegna,” Arthur mutters.

Eames chuckles, low and filthy, mouthing along Arthur's trapped forearm to his elbow. When he gets there he licks into the crease and laughs at Arthur's startled flinch. Hands occupied, he catches the bottom edge of Arthur's rolled-up shirtsleeve in his teeth. “Yet you keep rolling them up,” he says, muffled by the cloth. “How are you going to display all your ridiculous French cuffs and shiny cufflinks like this?”

Eames knows Arthur's shirtsleeve preferences, knows there is only one pair of cufflinks that matters, and where Arthur keeps those. Arthur knows he appreciates the rolled cuffs and the clean lines of designer shirts and Arthur's shoulders in them. He's had Eames draped over his shoulders, his back, pouring dirty talk into his ear with one hand clamped hard over the nape of his neck, often enough. Therefore this is just aggravation for the sake of aggravation. “Eames,” Arthur says, trying for stern.

Against Arthur's skin, Eames' mouth turns up. “What's the magic word?”

“Green, yellow, red,” Arthur recites.

Eames' breath catches – this close, Arthur can feel it. “Yeah, that too,” he says, suddenly rougher and breathier, and Arthur did that. “What's the other magic word, pet?”

Oh. “Please,” Arthur says. “Please, Mr. Eames.” He'd let his knees buckle but he's pinned too tightly to the wall. “Please.”

*

“Yeah,” Eames says, leaning in. He kisses along Arthur's jaw again, more bites than kisses really, the scrape of teeth. It's rough. Arthur's going to have beardburn for days. His hips jerk with it, mindless, his next please turning into a groan and Eames says, “Open your eyes.”

“What?” The feedback loop of his dick and Eames' animalistic kisses doesn't involve his brain. There's no blood left up there anyway.

“Eyes open, pet.”

Arthur opens his eyes. Hadn't realized he'd closed them again.

Eames' face is all Cheshire grin and mischief and, “I want you to to see. See what you make me want to do to you. I want you to watch.”

Arthur's pretty sure “hhnnnng” isn't a word.

“Mmmm,” Eames says in response. He moves Arthur's wrists, presses them to the wall, flat against the textured wallpaper and slightly out from Arthur's sides. “Alright?” he asks. His eyes flick up, assessing and too clear and Arthur can't look away. Can't.

He leans forward slightly into Eames' bulk and heat. “Alright,” he says.

“Good,” Eames says. “Keep them there.” He moves his hands up the length of Arthur's braced forearms, up to his elbows and the bunched fabric of his shirtsleeves. Then back down. Up and down, again. Again, and Arthur uncurls his own hands, straightens his fingers, holds himself flat against the wall as Eames' palms spread heat up his arms. It's weirdly anchoring, the cool unyielding wall and Eames' muscular warmth, like the time they'd tried armbinders. Arthur's arms had been secured behind him with smooth leather and buckles from wrist to elbow, and he'd liked the stretch across his shoulders and Eames' appreciative groan, but he hadn't been able to forget that he couldn't reach the buckles himself. Hadn't been able to relax.

Eames' hands come up and keep going this time, up to his shoulders. The fabric of his opened shirt offers no resistance to the heat of those hands. His hands continue, down Arthur's chest his ribs, his stomach, and settle on his hips. Eames moves with it, sinking down so he's kneeling in front of Arthur, his hands pinning Arthur's hips hard to the wall.

It takes a moment to realize Eames is talking. “...alright, pet? Talk to me.”

Arthur blinks down at him.

“Give me a colour, love,” Eames says. He's smiling.

Arthur considers it. He still feels anchored, warmed, palms to the wall and secure though he's no longer being held there. The heat of Eames' hands is still present, fuelling the heat of arousal. He would beg Eames to please, please just touch him, touch his trapped dick, he's right there. But he's being asked for something else.

“Green,” Arthur whispers, and when Eames keeps looking at him, repeats it louder. “Green, Mr. Eames.”

Eames grins, wide and wolfish.

“Alright,” he says, and it feels like Arthur merely blinks and then he doesn't have his pants on anymore. Or his underwear. Eames and his too-clever thieving fingers.

He's so hard it hurts. He can't look away.

Eames looks pleased and, oh, hungry. He has one arm across Arthur's hips, keeping him there. Arthur can't break his hold, doesn't want to. “Please,” Arthur says, “please,” and Eames takes Arthur's cock into his mouth.

*

Eames sucks cock like he forges, like he cracks jokes, like he steals; like it's an extension of himself, like it's easy.

*

For one whiteout moment Arthur can't think, can't breathe, he's going to come right there, with the tip of Eames' tongue pressed too hard to the perfect spot under the head of his cock. Right – yes – right there.

Eames gives him a touch of teeth, too much, just enough, so Arthur can pull himself back. He anchors himself in the bar of Eames' arm across his hips, the solidity of the wall behind him, the sight of Eames on his knees like he belongs. Like Arthur is doing everything right, this is right. He swallows a whine, he can't lean his head back against the wall and close his eyes like he wants to. Eames told him not to. Told him to watch.

Eames can't grin, not exactly, not like this. But the corners of his eyes crinkle up, his fingertips dig into Arthur's thigh.

*

Arthur wants to close his eyes and let his head thunk back against the wall. He wants to thrust mindlessly into the heat of Eames' mouth. He wants to bottle this moment and keep it forever. He wants to sear it onto his retinas. He wants to pass out; he wants Eames' fingers in his mouth, in his ass.

He wants.

He's not getting any of it except this, but he is. He's getting this now. His thoughts aren't making any sense because they're too full of Eames. Eames who has his ridiculous lips wrapped tight and perfect around Arthur's cock. He's moving so Arthur bumps the back of his mouth, breathing noisily through his nose in between.

He doesn't have to do this, doesn't have to make noise. He'd sucked Arthur off silently, once before, on recon 14 months ago, fast and filthy in a dark corner as the mark's real-life security paced by too close for comfort. Comfort hadn't been a priority, not with real-life bullets narrowly avoided minutes before. Not with Eames' nose pressed to Arthur's pubic bone, entirely defying the normal laws of breathing. Arthur had pressed his own hands to his mouth to keep quiet. Eames hadn't made a sound.

So Eames is letting Arthur hear him now. Letting Arthur see him, hear him, because he's not going to let him move. Now, Eames is loud and Arthur is silent, struck dumb by, by - -

Eames flicks a glance up. His cheeks hollow out. His rhythm changes, slower but more profound. His lips are reddened, there's a tic in the muscle of his jaw. He pulls off to grin, to lick the head of Arthur's dick and press his lips to the slit.

Arthur's whining. Can't stop.

Eames hums. It's electric, with his mouth where it is. He goes down and keeps going, smooth, and Arthur can't - -

“Yellow,” he gasps, startled into sound. His body's on fire and his lungs feel as though he's taken a punch to the sternum.

Eames gentles his mouth to the slightest suckling. A careful holding pattern. He curls two fingers tight around the base of Arthur's cock.

Arthur can hold out for another minute but that's not good enough, he wants more. He groans and Eames laughs.

That laugh is almost Arthur's undoing.

Eames pulls off long enough to say, rough-voiced, “Wait for the count, darling.”

*

It's sweet, maddening torture after that.

Arthur hangs on.

*

“Eames,” he says at last, more breath than voice. “Eames...” The brush of his fingers against Eames' shoulder is unexpected, shocking. He hadn't meant to move, but too late now, and it's only polite to warn a person when you're about to come in their mouth, god.

Eames looks up, holds eye contact as he pins Arthur's wrist back against the wall.

If Arthur were a little further under, Eames might make him wait, he has before, and Arthur's been happy to close his eyes, to sink into that small darkness, to whine and cling to Eames, shaky, and hold on. Eames doesn't seem to mind, seems to like it when Arthur can do nothing but beg and shiver.

But Eames asked him to watch, to be present. He doesn't make Arthur wait. He digs his fingernails hard into Arthur's hip, one after the other in sequence, four dull sparks of pain, one-two-three-four. That's the count. He hums, this throat closing - come on, do it.

It's exquisite, pleasure so sharp it nearly hurts. He takes a breath, two, someone's groaning, and Eames' fingers press in, one-two-three. Three.

He's sure his own fingertips will leave permanent dents in the wall.

Two, and Arthur comes with his eyes open, watching Eames swallow.

*

For a moment he can't breathe with the force of it. Then he's panting like a losing thoroughbred and Eames is laughing again, lips still sealed obscenely around Arthur's spent cock, too much, too much.

Eames hums sorry and backs off. Not away. He sucks gentle and shallow until Arthur's almost soft, until his breathing calms.

*

Arthur's still watching, because Eames' arm is still pressing his hips immovably to the wall. Because Eames hasn't told him to stop. Because Eames has his other hand around his own cock, jerking himself off quick and messy. His face is wet, he hasn't wiped it off, his shoulders heave. “Eames,” Arthur says. His fingers look too tight, it probably hurts. He doesn't look like he cares. “Eames, come on.”

The rasp of Eames' breathing and the slick slide of his hand are loud in the still room. For a moment every muscle in his body locks down tight and Arthur can't move, can see it all in high-definition living colour. How he's folded himself into the space at Arthur's feet, the bunched muscles of his thighs beneath the jeans he hasn't bothered to take off. The curve of his ribs, his spine, the back of his neck a rigid line. The play of muscle in his shoulder. Then he presses his face to Arthur's thigh. It doesn't quite muffle the sharp, hurt noise he makes as he comes all over Arthur's ankles.

*

Arthur waits until the tension has drained from Eames' body before he asks, “Bed now, Mr. Eames?”

He's tired. He has been all week.

Eames unfolds himself, stands up. He peels Arthur off the wall and into a more-than-slightly-sticky hug. “Yeah. Feeling better, love?”

Against his shoulder, Arthur nods. When Eames pulls back, he blinks, suddenly more tired than he can account for. Exhausted. The lights are too bright, the alcohol wearing off. His head will hurt soon.

Eames sees it, of course, because he sees everything, even the things Arthur's trying to hide.

He turns Arthur around. Arthur lets him, leans back to feel him there. He slides his hand up Arthur's skull (his clean hand, must be, because Arthur can't feel his hair catching on half-dried come). Stops at the top. “Close your eyes, then,” he says.

It's too much, again. Too soft, too much revealed, something in the tone of his voice that Arthur can't unpackage right now, can't deal with. He tenses up to pull away but Eames has his weight pulled too far backwards, off-balance, has his other arm around Arthur's waist, sticky fingers spread wide over his stomach. Arthur shuts his eyes but his eyelids feel jumpy, tight like he's probably frowning and just hasn't thought about it, and then Eames slides his hand down over top.

The darkness then is absolute. Warm.

Eames says, “This way, sweetheart,” and Arthur lets Eames walk him into the bedroom. Eames stops him just as his knees run into the edge of the bed. The hand guiding his elbow disappears, no, just moves to the back of his neck. Eames' fingers tighten one at a time, thumb last, bridging his spine, a question. A nonverbal are you alright? (or alternatively, green? But they're done with that for now.) Arthur nods under the hand over his eyes and behind him Eames says, “God, Arthur, you're so good.” Eames' thumb pets his temple. “Keep your eyes shut.”

Arthur's got this, now. He nods again, so Eames can lift the hand over his face.

Eames strips off Arthur's shirt one-handed, leaving the other hand tight over the back of his neck. “Don't worry, love,” he says, “I'm not leaving this one on the floor,” and there's the swish of egregiously expensive fabric over wood. Probably a chair. Arthur climbs into bed with his eyes still closed.

He opens them when Eames has gone into the bathroom, just long enough to check out the room he's in. He's run recon too long not to look but the room is safe, ordinary – the door they came through, the bathroom door, two windows, no surprises. His shirt is folded over the straight-backed chair under the nearer window. He closes his eyes again.

Eames comes back with a warm washcloth. He presses a bumpy cylinder and a small sharp-edged crinkle into Arthur's hands. “Here – water, painkiller. It'll make the morning better.”

Arthur can't take them. People can die in dreams from gunshots, from mudslides, from a face full of glass. They can also die from water hemlock, belladonna, potassium chloride, cyanide. Heroin, strychnine, arsenic, oxycontin. This is no dream, and it's stupid, stupid, but he can't. He shoves them blindly back at Eames. “No.”

“Alright.” They disappear. After a minute of rustling, Eames slides into bed behind him. He puts an arm over Arthur's waist, heavy and anchoring. “Sleep.”

*

In the morning his head feels like a train went through it. On the other side of the bedroom wall, the shower turns on; the sheets on Eames' side of the bed are still warm. He looks at the capped, sealed bottle of water on the bedside table and the bubble-pack ibuprofen with their foil backing still intact. Then he cracks open the water and takes the pills.

*

He wakes again and looks at the sunshine coming in under the curtain-edges. He's still alone in the bed but then there's a clatter from the other room, the hiss of air through teeth that Eames does when he's exasperated and there's no-one to take it out on. Arthur's too warm to move. He listens to water running, and shortly there's the faint sound of water coming to a boil. Trust Eames to make tea in the morning even when living out of a hotel. Eames does coffee in the afternoon if he's stressed, and sometimes scotch after dinner when he's not, but mornings are for tea. Arthur can appreciate the ritual even has he craves a sharper hit of caffeine. Eames doesn't have many rituals. Men of his adaptability aren't much given to habit. He'll happily go months without tea, without anything certain (up to and including drinking water in, say, Kenya) on the job without voicing complaint, but give him three days off and he'll find high-quality full-leaf Darjeeling like it's instinct. Between the tea, Arthur in his bed, and both of them being off the job, he'll be insufferably smug this morning.

There's a knock on the outer door.

Arthur tenses up, ready to move, but Eames doesn't give any of their three auditory signals that mean danger. Instead there's the tap of his fingers against the dooframe, and the pattern of taps means safe. Arthur relaxes a little, listening to the door open.

“Room service,” says an outside voice.

“Oh, lovely,” Eames says, and Arthur can hear the clink of coins. “There you are.”

The door shuts again.

Arthur realizes he can smell coffee seconds before Eames walks in holding a covered paper cup.

There's a funny feeling in Arthur's chest, then, and he's blushing helplessly, and oh. Eames is shirtless and bright-eyed and grinning, and has just procured morning coffee for Arthur though he doesn't drink it himself, and oh, Arthur thinks. Well, oops. Arthur drops his gaze too late, there's not a chance of hiding I love you too from Eames.

“Morning,” Eames says, and lowers the coffee into Arthur's hands.

“Thank you,” Arthur says, watching Eames' hands over his around the paper cup. Eames tips his chin up and kisses him.

It's a wonder nothing spills.

When Eames goes back into the other room, Arthur tries his coffee. It's perfect, of course. Eames comes back and puts his mug of tea down on the nightstand. Arthur isn't looking but the sound is distinctive. Eames strips off his pants and crawls back into bed, all bare skin and his hair still damp from the shower. “What do you think of Majorca, love?” he asks.

“Official languages are Catalan and Spanish,” Arthur says. “Forms the Balearic Islands along with Minorca, Ibiza, and Formentera. First conquered by the Romans, now a holiday destination for the royal family of Spain. Largely tourism dependent. Exports olives. Don't be obtuse, Mr. Eames.”

“You, me, ensaimadas beside the marina,” Eames clarifies, smiling wide enough to make his orthodonitic shortcomings entirely visible. “This afternoon. Bit of sightseeing, yeah?”

“You have a job lined up after,” Arthur says, feeling it out.

“In Palma,” Eames confirms. “In four days.”

Arthur likes Majorca, likes the grey-green of the olive trees, likes the sound of the Mallorqui dialect. He likes Eames wet from the ocean and relaxed. Islands aren't his favourite, too claustrophobic should something go wrong, but he has contacts there if needed, so “I haven't been in years,” he says, and watches Eames smile.


End file.
